Highway 20 closure starts Monday between Port Townsend, U.S. 101

PORT TOWNSEND — A section of state Highway 20 between Port Townsend and U.S. Highway 101 will be closed for repair of a damaged culvert starting Monday.

Highway 20 will be closed from Anderson Lake Road to Eaglemount Road starting at 9:30 a.m. Monday, but traffic will be stopped starting at the intersection of state highways 20 and 19 in Port Townsend and the intersection of highways 20 and 101 in Discovery Bay.

Traffic will be rerouted around the closure on highways 19 and 104, the state Department of Transportation said.

Drivers have two options. They can take Highway 19 about 20 miles south to its intersection with Highway 104, which connects with U.S. Highway 101 near Crocker Lake, or they can take Highway 19 to Chimacum and use Center Road to connect to Highway 104 and then Highway 101.

Either detour will add roughly 20 miles to the trip for drivers trying to get from Port Townsend to Highway 101.

Local traffic will be allowed through some area of the closure; however, no one will be allowed to drive through the work zone, which is the roughly 1,000 feet of road between Anderson Lake Road and Eaglemount Road, Transportation said.

That 1,000 feet of road will be closed completely starting Monday and is scheduled to reopen at 9:30 a.m. June 26.

Crews will work around the clock to fix a damaged culvert located 28 feet below the highway.

The culvert repair will eliminate the need for emergency repairs and road closures later caused by escaping water washing out the road’s foundation, Transportation officials said.

While the road closure is only expected to last a week, delays on Highway 20 between Port Townsend and Discovery Bay will continue through the week of June 26 as crews finish up work.